General Question

What does job creation mean?

We have been hearing a lot about the government’s promise to create jobs and to reduce unemployment rate. However, I am curious what that really means.
Are they trying to come up with grand projects like construction of Hoover dam in 30’s and sending man to the Moon in 60’s? These kind of project will produce only temporary jobs.
It is an irreversible trend to mechanized all manufacturing and packaging process. Once, automation is done it costs much less than to hire and pay people. I have noticed even CVS cut down the number of people working in the counter replacing them with self-check-out machines. In short, all the easy and manual jobs are disappearing.
So, then we could say we will train people for jobs requiring expertise and skill. However, aren’t these also supposed to be limited? We already have highly educated college graduates with no jobs. Isn’t it because those non-manual jobs are also limited, all those highly educated people go and look for jobs in banks and hedge funds?
What does the government mean when it says they will create jobs?

11 Answers

Welcome to Fluther.

In the context of political promises, it means “hold onto your wallet.” It means that government will take money from those who have it – who have “any”, in fact – and reward some industries and some businesses with plums. A couple of years ago it was GM (and the UAW), then it was Solyndra. Republicans do exactly the same when they have the opportunity.

Be wary of the politicians who claim to be Job Creators.
Most of them had an increase in jobs in their states due to stealing jobs from other states.
I know my company (AT&T) has moved a lot of jobs in California to Texas.

For the reasons you have given, automation and mechanisation of existing jobs, it is important that new jobs are created to replace them. Economies change, in Western economies far fewer people are employed in manufacturing than before and even fewer in agriculture and mining. On the other hand more people are employed in service industries and financial industries and in businesses no one even imagined ten or twenty years ago.

Job creation means education, research and development and a supportive business environment that encourages entrepreneurs to start new companies. A lot of these will fail, but some will thrive to become the economy of the future. It is best that we do it because the world isn’t going to stand still and if we don’t do it others will.

I’m not sure what it means, either. But you’ve nailed the problem! Automation is drastically reducing the need for labor. The solution is to shorten the work-week from 40 hours to 30 or even 20 hours a week (and make it mandatory; no exemptions for management or emergency personnel, etc.). This is actually a golden opportunity right now for us to redefine work and give everybody less working hours and more leisure time to enjoy life. But most people are too short-sighted to see this opportunity. They see it as a problem to be “solved” by creating make-work jobs.

Most people’s complaints about shortening the work-week is that it would cut their income by whatever % hours they work less. Well yeah. But the alternative is a world where 80% of the people are employed who support (through perpetually extending unemployment insurance or welfare) the remaining 20% who are unemployed. And those percentages are only going to become ever more skewed over the coming years.

There is this idea that through creativity and stimulation you can pay people to work, thus creating something of value that other people, businesses, or the taxpayers will pay for and cause a self-sustaining and mutually benificial relationship. This benefits everyone since it means more money flowing through the economy and ultimately can lead to more creation of this sort in other areas. I believe in this idea and especially the power of creativity over competition – just look at what groupon was able to accomplish. They created an entirely new market to stimulate demand no less and now are worth billions and have a large number of employees. This is but one extreme example and is the type of creation we need rather than increased competition as this actually makes markets less profitable and more vulnerable as a whole.

Automation doesn’t really reduce jobs. It gets a little complicated but all those automated tellers have to be built and serviced. Typically automation will reduce the price of goods. This frees up money to purchase other things. Electronics are a good example but it holds true for everything. As productivity increases, prices come down making room for more products.

Think about what the average family had in terms of appliances, cars, electronics, etc. 30 years ago and what they have now. The average household has a lot more stuff and a lot more leisure time to enjoy it. That’s what increases in productivity will do.

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.*

RP.2 Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.

RP.3 You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”

RP.4 I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.

It depends on what politician is saying “job creators” but in most cases it unfortunately doesn’t seem to mean more people have employment. Both parties seem to be beholden to international corporatists who, if they are creating jobs anywhere, are creating jobs in China and Vietnam and India.
Public works do create jobs, and create something of value to us all too, but not a lot of that is getting done recently.
The madmen who claim the most wealthy are “job creators” so deserve more tax cuts are insane or simply lying. The uber-wealthy simply don’t hire more people when they have more money, They take their extra dough and stuff it into some parasitic hedge fund. Tax cuts in fact encourage them to take their money out of companies that would hire people.